The general goal of the COA resilience hubs are neighborhood sites for disasters that provide the necessary power and water redundancies, shelter, heating, cooling, and refrigerated storage and walkable within 15 minutes for every Austin resident. The sites will be existing physical spaces (e.g., recreation centers, schools, churches, nonprofit spaces) and important social spaces where people can congregate, exchange information and will help residents prepare for climate impacts, respond when an event occurs, and help neighborhoods recover after an event has occurred. These goals align with the general policy discourse on resilience hubs as community-serving facilities augmented to support residents and coordinate resource distribution and services before, during, and and/or after a natural hazard event.
The City of Austin has convened meetings to plan for the implementation of the COA Resilience Hubs. In total, 34 meetings/events have occurred between January and May 2022. The data for the analysis below is generated from the participant list at each of the planning meetings. A total of 103 different individuals have attended at least 1 meeting.
We can better understand how the participants interact over the course of these meetings by creating a participant-meeting matrix. We can move from this participant-meeting matrix (in network terms this is considered a bi-partite netowrk) and create a participant-participant list by multiplying the matrix (M) by the transpose of the matrix (T). MxT = a participant-participant list.
From the adjacency matrix we can build a graph object using igraph in R. This graph object can be displayed as a network. Therefore, the stakeholder attendance at planning meetings forms the basis for network analysis, with the co-attendance of two individuals at the same meeting defining an interaction of those two individuals.
We can start to see how certain individuals interact more with each other than others by seeing patterns of participation at different meetings. We call this network modularity and we can visualize different subgroups that exist in this network of participants. In particular, we see four major sub-groups in the network of participants.
Using the network information, we can map the network in a interactive format. In the map below, each square represents an individual and connected squares mean that they participated together in at least one meeting. The larger the square the more other individuals that person has attended meetings with from Jan. to March.
The participants in the network map above all come from somewhere across the city. The map below plots each meeting participant across the Austin area.
One of the tools frequently used by network analysis is understanding who is “most central” in the network. The table below lists all participants (by their affiliation) and is ordered in descending “degree centrality”. Degree centrality has been associated with both activity as well as influence in planning processes.
| Affiliation | meetings | Org.Type | TotalDegree |
|---|---|---|---|
| CoA OoS | 33 | City Agency | 102 |
| CoA OoS | 21 | City Agency | 77 |
| CoA OoS | 12 | City Agency | 74 |
| CoA OoS | 12 | City Agency | 69 |
| AISD | 10 | City Agency | 64 |
| CoA OoS | 14 | City Agency | 59 |
| CoA CRO | 6 | City Agency | 52 |
| TARA | 10 | City Agency | 50 |
| AACHI | 4 | NGO | 48 |
| ADRN | 4 | NGO | 48 |
| Community Advancement Network | 4 | NGO | 48 |
| GAVA | 4 | NGO | 48 |
| UT | 4 | Academia | 48 |
| HACA | 3 | NGO | 47 |
| APH | 9 | City Agency | 44 |
| CoA Equity Office | 9 | City Agency | 44 |
| Citizen | 3 | Private | 43 |
| Community Coalition for Health | 3 | NGO | 43 |
| Ascension | 4 | NGO | 40 |
| CoA Equity Office | 9 | City Agency | 40 |
| GAVA | 4 | NGO | 40 |
| Red Cross | 4 | NGO | 40 |
| Travis County ES | 6 | County Agency | 40 |
| Ascension | 2 | NGO | 38 |
| Austin Revitalization Authority | 2 | City Agency | 38 |
| CoA Oos | 3 | City Agency | 38 |
| Community Coalition for Health | 3 | NGO | 38 |
| Community Impact | 2 | NGO | 38 |
| Community Resilience Trust | 3 | NGO | 38 |
| Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Co. | 2 | NGO | 38 |
| Travis County HHS | 4 | County Agency | 38 |
| TACHC | 2 | NGO | 37 |
| Central Texas Food Bank | 2 | NGO | 36 |
| CoA CPIO | 3 | City Agency | 32 |
| CoA Parks & Rec | 7 | City Agency | 32 |
| Travis County HHS | 3 | County Agency | 32 |
| AE | 5 | City Agency | 30 |
| APH | 6 | City Agency | 29 |
| APH | 6 | City Agency | 29 |
| CoA Pub Works | 5 | City Agency | 29 |
| Huston-Tillotson University | 2 | Academia | 29 |
| CoA Pub Works | 6 | City Agency | 27 |
| GAVA | 1 | NGO | 27 |
| TACHC | 1 | NGO | 27 |
| AE | 5 | City Agency | 26 |
| Austin Justice Coalition | 1 | NGO | 26 |
| Red Cross | 1 | NGO | 26 |
| Austin Achieve | 1 | NGO | 25 |
| Black Neighborhood Development Corporation | 1 | NGO | 25 |
| Central Texas Interfaith | 0 | NGO | 25 |
| Community Coalition for Health | 1 | NGO | 25 |
| Community Powered Workshop | 1 | NGO | 25 |
| El Buen Samaritano | 0 | NGO | 25 |
| PUMA | 1 | NGO | 25 |
| Refugee Services of Texas | 0 | NGO | 25 |
| Sustainable Food Center | 1 | NGO | 25 |
| TARA | 5 | City Agency | 25 |
| AISD | 3 | City Agency | 23 |
| ACC | 3 | Academia | 23 |
| CoA APL | 3 | City Agency | 21 |
| Travis County OEM | 4 | County Agency | 21 |
| Travis County | 5 | County Agency | 19 |
| CoA Parks & Rec | 3 | City Agency | 18 |
| AISD | 7 | City Agency | 17 |
| APH | 5 | City Agency | 16 |
| CoA City Manager | 3 | City Agency | 16 |
| CoA HSEM | 3 | City Agency | 16 |
| Travis County | 3 | County Agency | 16 |
| Travis County Environmental Quality | 4 | County Agency | 16 |
| ATD | 1 | City Agency | 15 |
| Austin Water | 1 | City Agency | 15 |
| CoA HSEM | 1 | City Agency | 15 |
| CoA HSEM | 7 | City Agency | 15 |
| UT | 1 | Academia | 15 |
| UT | 1 | Academia | 15 |
| UT | 1 | Academia | 15 |
| UT | 1 | Academia | 15 |
| Central Health | 2 | NGO | 14 |
| CoA CPIO | 2 | City Agency | 14 |
| Travis County OEM | 2 | County Agency | 14 |
| APH | 1 | City Agency | 12 |
| AE | 1 | City Agency | 12 |
| Citizen | 1 | Private | 12 |
| COA Housing | 4 | City Agency | 12 |
| CoA HSEM | 2 | City Agency | 12 |
| Forge Craft Architecture | 1 | NGO | 12 |
| AE | 1 | City Agency | 11 |
| AE | 1 | City Agency | 11 |
| Austin Water | 1 | City Agency | 11 |
| Citizen | 1 | Private | 11 |
| CoA Pub Works | 1 | City Agency | 11 |
| CoA Pub Works | 1 | City Agency | 11 |
| AISD | 2 | City Agency | 10 |
| Travis County OEM | 2 | County Agency | 10 |
| Austin Water | 1 | City Agency | 9 |
| TDEM | 3 | State Agency | 9 |
| TDEM | 2 | State Agency | 9 |
| Travis County | 1 | County Agency | 9 |
| Hays County ES | 1 | City Agency | 8 |
| Quest Realty | 1 | Private | 8 |
| Travis County | 1 | County Agency | 8 |
| Travis County | 1 | County Agency | 8 |
| Red Cross | 2 | NGO | 6 |